GALLERY

New memorial unveiled to American D-Day casualties

Children release balloons that carry the names of U.S. soldiers who died during the D-Day invasion at a 70th anniversary D-Day commemoration at the 9th Air Force Memorial at Picauville, France, June 5, 2014.

PICAUVILLE, France — In the middle of the night 70 years ago, residents of this town woke to the roar of aircraft engines, the thunder of German flak guns, a crash and the screams of dying Americans.

Those were the first casualties of D-Day, according to the lore here, where a new memorial to Americans who died in the air assault on Normandy was unveiled Thursday.

With American C-130 cargo planes buzzing low overhead, French officials said the crash was a horror, but also brought joy to the people because they realized that their liberators had arrived.

“This community remembers the liberation, as do others across Europe,” said U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, commander of U.S. European Command and NATO’s supreme allied commander.

Breedlove was one of more than 200 members of the U.S. military at the ceremony, one of the hundreds of commemorations being held this week in Normandy in remembrance of the 70th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion that led to the downfall of Nazi Germany.

Nearly a thousand people turned out here to watch as French and American officials and the daughters of two World War II pilots unveiled the memorial, which stands next to a memorial to the 9th Air Force, a model of a C-47 troop transport and the remains of one of the engines of the plane that crashed here in the opening moments of the Allied assault.

“You honor the sacrifices made here, and you did not forget the heroes who rest below your soil,” Breedlove said.

Nearly 50 World War II veterans from every branch of service attended the dedication. They were treated like rock stars by locals, officials, re-enactors and tourists who crowded in to get autographs from the men who fought here 70 years ago.